SQUID, Where’s My Wearable Tech?

#Health #Wellness #Fitness #Wearables Being sick is expensive, even with Canada’s great universal health care system. And it’s not fun either.

Tangent time: Ok, this blurb will be loaded and long, so be prepared. Without coming across as too revealing, insensitive, or a sell-out, since the latter is totally not me, I’ll just drop clues here and there and the rest will be up to the universe to figure out. Being a person who has loss family members to hereditary health issues, both from my maternal and paternal side, fitness and prevention has been my thing since my late teens. I became very aware about the merits of fitness in my early adult life. It took a lot of trial and error, soul searching, ups and downs, and determination to stay fit. I took up body building during my university freshman years to combat breathing issues I’ve had since my teens, and it worked! At that time Arnold Schwarzenegger was my #1 inspiration. I don’t want to bulk up, my goal is just to have some definition and remain fit. I don’t want my life to revolve around the gym or kitchen. I don’t want to be flat chested or have a wall for a butt lol. #definition I lost track of gym workouts after university and twenty years of pursuing my career in four different countries. For the past ten years my workout has become more of a habit. Fitness is not just a long term commitment, it’s a lifestyle change. It doesn’t happen overnight. Before you even get there, you have to have a strong motivation to keep you from straying. My motivation is early untimely death. There are accidents and there are self-inflicted preventable issues brought about by bad habits and bad choices. For instance, if you know smoking is not good for you, why do you smoke? Unfortunately, people need to reach a tipping point to bring them to the other side. For some it can be too late. Fitness is a personal choice – staying active and having a good diet. Diet isn’t about starving or depriving yourself with what the world has to offer, it’s about making intelligent food choices and not wallowing in excess. I personally don’t believe in being 100% vegan, or being a total carnivore, or a lard glutton. The human body was designed by nature to process meat and plants, the trick is the balance. I don’t believe in eating more to lose weight. I believe in eating what your body needs to burn for a given day. I avoid consuming fatty meats, greasy food, too much carbohydrates, too much sweets, sea salt, fake salt, soda, fast food, alcohol, processed food, food riddled with preservatives, and innards. I stick to fresh, steamed, or baked vegetables, baked poultry or fish, steamed grains, fresh vegetables, fruit extracts and natural juices, tea, and little chocolates portions for treats. Noticed I wrote “avoid”, it’s because I allow myself to indulge a little bit from time to time, although infrequently and only if I don’t have a choice. Diet is about what you eat and how much. There’s no silver bullet, there’s no magic pill. Each person have different nutrient needs. So you have to figure it out on your own by trying things out. To me, a good meal consists of 35% vegetables, 20% fresh fruits, 20% whole grain or carbohydrates, 25% lean unprocessed meat. Plenty of fresh water and fruit juices. I’m also interested in knowing how certain people passed on. Not to judge, not to invade privacy … but for prevention sake. Imagine how you would feel if people who contracted terminal disease didn’t share that fact to the center for disease control, and the public? People would just fall ill and we wouldn’t know how to stop it. Next thing you know, there’s an outbreak. Early screenings of various cancers, health advocacy groups, research institutions … it all spells … this is what I’ve got and let’s gather around and figure out how to beat it. Secrecy helps no one! So when a celebrity dies, there’s quite a huge interest in knowing the circumstance. Part of it is intrigue due to their stature, but to me, if others can learn something from what happened in order to avoid it … I think that person’s life will have more meaning. Unlike regular private people, celebrities have a greater responsibility to inform the public due to their clout and the vast number of people who look up to them. To me, the best medicine is prevention. It sounds cliche but fact of the matter is, that’s the best solution. Some are born with a terminal ailment, it’s sad, but this is not about that. Focus! Anyway, so I run. I run up to five days a week for half an hour. Eight years ago, I used to run on the treadmill for three hours late at night each day for months until my knee gave in. And I had to stop for a while because I had trouble walking! Doctor’s orders. If you have to ask, it was how I expelled negative energy. It was a very stressful period in my life. That’s another thing … managing stress. Early in my career I worked with this senior accountant who was totally rude to me, being a rookie and all. I was so naive and got really hurt. I talked to my boss about the situation (more like he talked to me because he saw me crying on the high rise roof top lounge, or fallen cabinet, LOL), and he talked to the guy. The senior guy and I had a chat, and he said that he sometimes come across as harsh because he have to express himself, because it’s either my feelings or his heart. Doctor’s orders. Knowing that enabled myself to understand better why he acted the way he did. And from that point forward I didn’t took his strong words personally. To quote John Leguizamo about speaking his mind “If I’m not gonna let it out its gonna build into a cancer.” It sounds funny, but that’s actually true. Cancer, stress, … etc. If you keep it all in, it’s going to manifest into something else like wrinkles, stress, depression … or worse, suicidal thoughts. Yes, we all have to watch what we say, and we have to own what we say, but at the same token … we can’t always wrap our opinions in bubble wrap, that’s not reality. Unless you’re into serious weight training, you don’t need gym membership to get fit. You have your surroundings and your body weight. Use that. Ever heard of P90-X? Try it for starters. Anyway …

When I go for a jog I need to check the time and my heart rate in order to optimize my calorie burn. I used to have a fitness watch but I smashed it with my dumbbell. Not kidding. Why? It took forever to get a pulse reading. I have to repeatedly press a button and ensure it is properly in contact with my skin to get any reading. It doesn’t work when it’s cold or if my skin is dry. I was okay with it being bulky, but the time it took to get a reading … up to a minute, was unacceptable. Then last week it emit a long high pitch beep when I press the read button. I tried to fix it by slamming it on the cabinet, it sorta worked, but after three occurrences … adios amigos! In March 2014 I was still in the market for a fitness watch. I happen to find this article about an upcoming wellness fitness wristband when I was doing my research. It was later given the name, SQUID. It has all the features that I wanted, and I like the form factor. It’s not one of those classical geeky watch. It looked modern and unobtrusive. I liked it so much that I wrote an blurb about it. It was still under development at that time so I had to settle for the next best thing I could find. Then Microsoft, Samsung, Google, and Apple suddenly came up with their own equivalent products … followed by a slew of wannabes. I checked some of them out, and NONE of them was up to par SQUID in terms of ingenuity and style. The big names all came up with clunky and very old fashioned designs … what gives? It’s more of an extension to their existing product lines instead of a unique product. And for this alone, theirs will be merely ornamental and will eventually fade. The big names where so in a hurry to put something out even if it sucks. I mean, I don’t need to check my e-mails, video, and weather on a tiny screen, I have my phone for that! I won’t be socializing or working when I’m running! What I want is a real-time pulse monitor and time check for my run lapse. Here’s the kicker, SQUID actually measures electromagnetic radiation emitted from all sorts of devices, like cellphones. It is a real health issue. For example, and I quote “International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies radio frequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans“, i.e. Gliomas, a malignant type of brain cancer (read the report here). There are also counter claims that says the correlation is inconclusive. To me, that’s the cellphone manufactures pushing the findings back because it might hurt their profits. It’s not that difficult to deduce! For an international organization, like IARC, to even consider electromagnetic exposure as carcinogenic source should be enough for people to think twice about the over use of cellphones when placing phone calls! Unfortunately, some people don’t believe in anything until they’re in the thick of it. Again, prevention is the key. This device suits best my needs and then some. So where’s my SQUID?! That’s the question. I like the black one, since it goes with the color of my cat, apartment furniture, and car. Ha! To learn more about SQUID, check out the manufacturer’s site, http://www.iewei.net/en/. SQUID is schedule to be sold in North America, Canada, and the UK on June 21st! Check your nearest Starbucks soon for this nifty health and wellness wristbands!